Same old but with dinosaurs
by bhut
Summary: Early S2 AU/semi-crossover with "Primeval", where Ward actually gets to hang off a T-Rex's nose...


**Same old but with time travel**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine whatsoever._

Once upon a time there was an S.H.I.E.L.D. specialist agent called Grant Ward, who had made a wrong choice - _many_ wrong choices – and almost ended up in Hydra. 'Almost' because instead he landed in a Vault of S.H.I.E.L.D., not an asset, basically a prisoner, and... there was no 'basically', but just who he was. Maybe not a Hydra agent, but definitely a prisoner of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was depressing, it was more than depressing, and Grant Ward did not know where to go.

There was cooperation with S.H.I.E.L.D., one supposed, but Grant Ward was not stupid in that fashion; he knew that this sort of thing went nowhere and just prolonged the inevitable - execution. Permanent incarceration. Something else – nothing that he really wanted, not at all.

There was escape. Grant Ward _was_ trained to escape from captivity; he could escape from the Vault – and the current S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ whenever he wanted to; the problem was that he did not have anywhere to go. He would not go to Hydra, for he was not Hydra, not since the mission to Siberia, where Ward realized that he was not Hydra and would never be Hydra – and told John so, and John didn't have any problems with it, for he wasn't Hydra either: just a very selfish, self-centered man, who owed everything of value that Grant Ward had, and when the time came, Grant had given him everything back, and it wasn't enough, and Ward now had nothing left, save for a Vault in the S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ's basement – and that included no places to go, not really. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't want him (rightfully so), he didn't want Hydra, and anything else would just result in a lot of broken and bleeding bodies, and that was something Grant Ward didn't want – not unless it was necessary and couldn't be avoided, which in this circumstance it could be, by him staying in the Vault, and wasn't that just sad? Grant Ward always opted to put things into boxes, mental ones at least, and now he himself was in a box (a cell, a Vault – take your pick), and going mental... It was annoying.

Snarling in annoyance, Grant Ward whirled around, intent on punching the walls of the Vault, just to let out some of the confusing feelings that recently appeared in his head and chest – and failed to connect. There was a hole – not an ordinary hole in the wall sort of thing, but rather a glimmering hole in time and space – and Grant Ward had just punched it.

On the plus side of things, the hole didn't appear to mind – it just hang there in midair, twinkling and shining, even after Grant withdrew his arm from it, so it wasn't sentient at least. Good. Now what?

Grant Ward waited 5 minutes, then 9, then 13. Any sort of S.H.I.E.L.D. team, aimed at pulling him out on one hand, and settling down a scientific station in order to study the hole failed to appear. Consequently, this left Grant Ward with the option of going into the hole himself, and WTF not? Surely it wouldn't be worse than staying in the Vault? ...Bracing himself, Ward went in.

/

What greeted him on the other side of the hole was, well, a wilderness. Sweltering heat, lush vegetation (palms, ferns, some other plants that Grant had no idea as to what they were called), moisture, stench of nature – Ward had missed it, especially after all of those missions to Africa, India, and South America...he missed it. He did not miss sweating like a pig, sure, but he could always go back...and that was just sad. Here he was, free at last, and all he was thinking about was going back into his cell...he really was a robot that could be wound up, go out, and perform – and then return to his box for the next time his owner wanted to play. Sad, if not outright pathetic...

...Ward was not aware that he was speaking all of this aloud until the dinosaur grunted in annoyance, suggesting that the man had to either do something about it or shut up, and let him, the dinosaur, graze in peace.

...Wait, what dinosaur?

Ward wasn't the biggest specialist on dinosaurs, but even he had dinosaur books once, and even these sort of children books identified his new 'friend' as a Triceratops, the old 'three-horned face', which was currently too close to Ward's own for comfort, grunting and chewing some sort of a vegetable or something like that.

"Excuse me," Ward said politely to the dinosaur, before turning around and pointedly going _not_ back to the hole through which he came. (If the dinosaur did go through it, then Coulson and the others could figure out what to do with it on their own.) Instead, he went to his right, from where sounds of running water came, and Ward figured that he could use a drink, and maybe a bath. Sure, drinking untreated water was risky, but if this was the time of dinosaurs, then Ward certainly doubted that drinking untreated water would make him ill – he wasn't a dinosaur, after all. Anatomically and all, he was built differently.

As luck turned out, Ward _did not_ get his drink, let alone a bath. There was running water – at the bottom of a gully, a very small stream, and the gully had very tall and steep edges. That would not have stopped the ex-agent turned... well, he did not know what he was, anymore, but there were a couple of animals drinking from the stream already, and they looked strange: lizard-like posture, heads more like those of mongrel dogs or similar animals, and long, tall sails or fins on their backs. Maybe they were dinosaurs. Ward didn't know, didn't care – for once, he was content just to lie there at the edge of the gully and observe them from a safe distance, for that brought back happier memories, about his times with Buddy, until Garrett returned and began to 'train' him in earnest, starting a chain of events that led to Grant's current predicament...

Somehow observing a pair of prehistoric...critters, while lying on soft grass beneath a warm – okay, hot – sun, Grant felt... different. Somehow it was hard to feel sorry for himself in these circumstances – but he did miss his team. His...friends. Garrett had given everything, and then he took everything, and Ward had no idea of where to go from here – and then the T-Rex arrived and the question of going became much less rhetorical and more urgent. (Or not.)

Again, as in the case of the Triceratops, even Grant could recognize the 'tyrant lizard king' when he saw it. Huge body, massive head, jaws built like a death machine, a tail that was reminiscent of a massive two-by-four, and tiny, tiny front legs. If this was not a T-Rex, Ward did not know what a T-Rex was then – and it was headed for the two smaller animals, the ones with the sails on their backs. Well, yes, smaller was the relative term here, since the sailbacks were as long as an average human being was tall, and their own jaws were quite nasty and formidable-looking, but against a T-Rex? Yeah, picture one decisively unimpressed 'tyrant lizard king' here, looking for a couple of fast food meals.

"Oy! You there! Stop!" Ward yelled downwards, and as a result the smaller animals looked upwards, and the Tyrannosaurus just looked sideways – it was almost as tall as the gully itself was.

"Right, I forgot, dinosaurs – they don't understand English," Grant muttered to himself, even as the dinosaur snapped in him.

Something came over Ward – maybe it was stupidity, or maybe instinct – but he just jumped up and out and landed on the dinosaur's head. It was ridiculous and stupid, the fact that he was holding onto a T-Rex by its nostrils made it even more ridiculous, stupid and suicidal, (frankly, suicide by T-Rex? It was a new one even by S.H.I.E.L.D. textbooks), but there he was holding onto a bucking dinosaur even as it tried to shake him off.

Unlike, say, an African elephant, or even a rhinoceros, a dinosaur such as a Tyrannosaurus doesn't have much in the department of holding onto – Grant was shaken and shook and thrown all over the place, with the dinosaur's jaws and teeth being way too close to his body for comfort. The fact that all he had to hold onto were, well, nostrils, did not improve his situation either, and then – the dinosaur stopped trying to shake Ward off and looked downwards, where the bigger of the two sailbacks had bit it on the leg. It was a very good attempt, but out of all that had gathered here, the Tyrannosaurus still had the biggest jaws and teeth by far. Ignoring Grant, (who was still hanging on), the T-Rex shifted its poise, and got ready to strike. The sailbacks, having finally realized that attracting the attention of the tyrant lizard king was a bad idea, began to back away at last, but surprisingly reluctantly and with a show of their own force, snapping their own jaws and swishing their tails. It was surprisingly brave of them – and absolutely hopeless, since the Tyrannosaurus was outmatching both of them at once.

In a moment of strange detached clarity Grant nodded that one of the sailbacks was marginally bigger than the other, rather like how Simmons was taller than Fitz was (Fitz had to wear thick-soled shoes in order to save some manly self-esteem, at least at first).

Fitz...Simmons...FitzSimmons...Grant did not know why he could not admit it, but his betrayal of the scientists was perhaps the worst thing he had done, (aside from his betrayal of the team in general). Having these memories at this moment was just the pits, and speaking of pits? Coming from the one deep within his heart, Grant Ward had enough.

"Now listen here," he told the Tyrannosaurus in an authoritative tone of voice. "I don't think that you're me in a previous incarnation; if I start believing into reincarnation and the Samsara wheel on top of time travel, that's... just too much. But still, still, you are the tyrant lizard _king_ , not some sort of a _bully_ – let the little people go! Otherwise, if reincarnation is real, you'll end up not as me, but as my brother Christian, and believe me, nobody wants to be reincarnated as _that_ pile of radioactive waste on two legs, no sir!"

There was a pause in the action as the dinosaur in question apparently stared at the nice man's soothing voice. Okay, you cannot really stare at a voice, but the T-Rex stopped fighting, (well, just stopped) and stared in confusion. Grant shifted around, took another look – yes, still hanging on, **cough** , and yes, the smaller sailbacks were there, also staring upwards – apparently his voice was a big hit with the prehistoric reptiles. Just great. Couldn't he do _anything_ right?

Annoyed, Grant jumped upwards, away from the dinosaur, landing back on the gully. He clearly needed a new strategy. The Triceratops, who saw him appear seemingly from nowhere (Triceratops did not really have good eyesight) did not think so – in fact, it did not think so at all. It just charged, Ward zigged, and the three-horned face went down the gully instead with a crash.

Slowly – couldn't just something go right for him just once? – Ward peeked downwards. Neither the sailbacks nor the T-Rex were hurt, and in fact were staring at the downed dinosaur was a clear hunger in their eyes – a meeting of carnivores, here. They did notice Grant looking downwards at them and stared upwards at him, almost hesitant, inviting too – but then again, he did deliver them a lot of Triceratops meat, and carnivores, especially pack hunters, are hard-wired to work with that.

"Now as for you two," Grant said conversationally to the sailbacks, ignoring the T-Rex for the moment. (Yes, it was a monumentally stupid thing to do, but frankly Ward never considered himself to be too smart.) "Look, you're brave, strong, and all, but you're also small – well, smallish, compared to some, such as him over there," he indicated the Tyrannosaurus. "If you want to defeat him – and want is the key word here – you got to be smart, not just brave." He paused. "Of course, I am just wasting my breath, nobody here understands English, but still, you know? I just wanted to say it. After all, if after millions of years you two reincarnate into FitzSimmons it would be nice for you to have an early start. And you," he turned to the Tyrannosaurus, "you know what? I do not even want to go with the reincarnation angle with you. If you will be me, it is all pointless, and if you are not me, meh, I just hope that you will not be one of my biological relatives. The rest – it's good enough."

And he turned around and went back to his hole...hoping that it hadn't disappeared and he didn't get stuck into the prehistoric time for good.

It had not. He did not.

/

Sitting back in the Vault (or _a_ Vault), Grant Ward mused. The hole in time and space had closed just few moments ago, and until then, he could have stayed on the other side – for good. It would not have been any worse than back when he was stuck all by himself (and Buddy) back in the _American_ wilderness, (and for all that he knew, the hole back then still led to an American wilderness, just during the time of the dinosaurs – different time, same place), and Ward _did_ love nature (more so than he liked other people), but...

He did like nature (if he had not, he would have gone mad in those 5 years), and he did not like people (to put it mildly), only...he did. During the time when he had been a part of Coulson's team, he learned to like the other people – sort of, and to be honest, while he had never perceived himself to be a hero, he always liked the idea of helping other people – a spillover, perhaps, from his old childhood, when his parents and elder brother treated him like crap...and S.H.I.E.L.D. had given him the opportunity to do so, and that _was_ what he did, until Garrett demanded his due, and Ward made his choice, and now he was here, in the dungeon (cell, Vault, etc – take your pick, really). Maybe he would have been better off in the prehistoric world...

"Ward?"

"Coulson?" Ward looked at the older man, who was standing outside his cell, backed by Skye. "Why are you here? Something has happened?"

There was a pause, as apparently Ward's new, more cooperative attitude had caught the current director of S.H.I.E.L.D. slightly flat-footed.

"You're unusually talkative today," he told the ex-agent.

"I just asked few questions," Ward said, apologetically. "I can always be silent once more-"

"No, that works fine," Coulson said curtly. "Tell me, did Garrett ever talk to you about an agent Morse? Or Palomas? Rank numbers 19 and 33 work too."

Grant thought about this. "I need context, sir, or photos – I think I remember something, but nothing concrete. One of them isn't a big blonde, is she?"

"...Maybe," came the careful response from Coulson. "Are you asking or are you telling?"

"Can I have a photo? See it, I mean? I remember Garrett dating someone like that, once, but only to make himself feel good, your equal," Ward confessed. "Otherwise, regretfully, I honestly got nothing."

"Wow, I am genuinely surprised that you can say any word with 'honest' in it and not burst into flames," Skye finally spoke up. "Plus, I'm surprised that you're actually _talking_ to DC – I thought that you talked only to me."

"And I was wrong to do that," Ward admitted. He did not know why he does it, but maybe his little trip to the past had changed something in him; he will never admit it, but he felt as if the world itself had changed. "So, well, sir," he turned back to Coulson, "I will no longer insist on agent Skye coming to see me, especially if she doesn't want to – send whoever you want to, and I will them what I know, no holds barred."

"How generous of you," Coulson did not sound very impressed. "And what do you want in return?"

"I want to help people," Ward shrugged. "Beyond that, I got nothing. No, wait – why are you asking me the questions about the blonde and her partner?"

"Now that isn't something for you to know," came a curt reply, and without further ado both he and Skye went upstairs, leaving Ward behind. The ex-agent, however, did not care – he knew that the world itself had changed, somehow, and perhaps his little trip to the past was the catalyst. If so, then he is ready to seize the next chance, to show the world (well, Coulson and others), how he had changed, and become, hopefully, a better man.

End?

 **Author's Note. So I watched "Jurassic World" some time ago (great CGI, the rest – not so much), and thought, well, that the dinosaurs made everything cooler. Then I watched BBC show "Primeval" on DVD, which is about a group of people dealing with time anomalies and dinosaurs (and other prehistoric animals), and decided to give S.H.I.E.L.D. its own dinosaurs. Basically, this is a semi crossover between "Primeval" and "Agents", or "Agents" with dinosaurs, if you like. Did it work? All comments and criticisms are welcome.**


End file.
